


The Jangly Man

by Written_On_The_Trees



Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [4]
Category: Ice Nine Kills (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Horror, Inspired by Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Non-graphic Murder, October Prompt Challenge, Prompt Fic, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Written_On_The_Trees/pseuds/Written_On_The_Trees
Summary: Day 4 of my 31 October Writing Prompts. Prompt:Ghost Stories.Everyone in Freya's home town knew the story of the Jangly Man - it was their local urban legend...but that doesn't explain why her boyfriend Spencer seems so confident about the story...
Relationships: Spencer Charnas/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949572
Kudos: 3





	The Jangly Man

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as my first attempt at writing anything scary, also also known as my friend made me watch a tiny bit of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and it scared the shit out of me, enough that it stuck with me long enough to make me write this. Anyone else out there a fan of Ice Nine Kills while being absolutely terrified of horror films? Please, come chat to me, I don't want to be alone.

“Let me tell you the story of the Jangly Man…”

Beside her, Freya’s boyfriend Spencer rolled his eyes and scoffed under his breath.

Freya was a little surprised - _the story of the Jangly Man was a bit of a local urban legend, so how Spencer had heard of it she didn’t know_ \- but she didn’t really blame him. The story wasn’t the scariest of ghost stories; it was wasn’t believable enough to actually make anyone thing it was true. Even as kids, it had only really been scary because they all recognised the old house it was set in. Now they were adults, it wasn’t even scary enough to keep them out of the old house…though the cold and damp was making Freya regret coming.

How some old acquaintances from school had managed to convince her to spend Halloween sitting in a freezing, damp, abandoned old house instead of in the warmth of her parents’ house, Freya wasn’t entirely sure. She was only back in town to introduce Spencer to her parents, and now the pair of them were stuck drinking shitty beer and listening to even shittier ghost stories.

It was ridiculous.

Aaron started going on about the story of the Jangly Man - how he was murdered by a man who wanted to marry his wife, but came back from the grave to enact his revenge, dropping down the chimney in the pieces his wife’s admirer had cut him into, before reassembling himself and the couple he found in the bed, only to find out that that couple wasn’t his wife and her new lover. Driven mad by rage and coming back from the dead, the Jangly Man started roaming the town, breaking the necks of anyone and everyone he came across ad tearing them apart, in case they were his wife or her lover. It wasn’t anything special when it came to ghost stories, and soon enough Freya was leaning into Spencer’s side and swirling her beer around in her bottle, watching the light of the torches people were holding reflect off the liquid.

Spencer wasn’t paying any attention either - or at least Freya thought he wasn’t.

“First his head fell into the cold fireplace, then his hands - ”

“First it was his feet.” Spencer suddenly spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at him in surprise - even Freya - but only Aaron asked what Spencer was talking about: “What?”

Spencer shrugged: “The Jangly Man’s feet were the first thing that came down the fireplace. Then his body, then his arms and his legs, and his head was last.”

The room was silent, with even Aaron looking a little surprised, because they’d all heard the story a million times, and it had always been told with the Jangly Man’s head dropping down the chimney first. But that wasn’t what struck Freya as strange.

It was the quiet confidence Spencer said it with.

He wasn’t rolling his eyes anymore - he was wearing the smirk he got when he was talking to someone about something that he knew he knew more about than them, and that…was unsettling to Freya. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but it just _did_.

“No?” he asked, looking around the group and pulling a confused face _(one that Freya knew him well enough to know was fake, even though she didn’t know why he’d want to fake it)_ before shrugging: “Maybe I heard a different version.”

The group bought it…but something still felt a little off to Freya.

She still could put her finger on why, so she tried to ignore it, leaning in closer to Spencer’s side and forcing herself to smile as he cuddled her closer. It was all perfectly normal, from the smell of his cologne to the weight of his arm around her shoulders to the way he always seemed to feel a few degrees cooler than Freya did. It was all exactly the same as she was used to, but…but try as she might, Freya couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. No matter how much time passed, she couldn’t shake the feeling.

It niggled at her, buzzing around in her brain and distracting her long after Aaron had moved on to other ghost stories, to the point that Spencer turned to her and asked her if everything was alright. She was half a second from saying no, and asking if they could just head back to her parents’, when Aaron declared that they should play a game of hide and seek.

Freya couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less…but Spencer smiled, and suddenly she felt like she couldn’t say no. Not because he looked happy…

…because he looked terrifying.

He pulled her to her feet along with everyone else, following them to the weird room upstairs that was the center of the house, overlooking the stairs and the entrance hallway. There was no time for Freya to voice the way she felt - before she could get a word in edgeways, Aaron was asking who wanted to be the first seeker, and Spencer was volunteering, with a glee in his voice that turned Freya’s blood to ice.

Spencer started counting, and the group headed out into the hallway to find hiding spots.

“One, two, three…”

Just before Sarah, Aaron’s fiancé, could close the door, the counting stopped. The group paused, and turned as one to see what the problem was, only to freeze when they saw Spencer.

Moonlight had broken through the clouds, and hit Spencer full-on through the window, illuminating him against the darkness.

Only he didn’t look like Spencer anymore.

In the moonlight, his skin was unnaturally pale - he was had never been the most tanned guy, but now his skin had a sallow, death-like pallor…and it was bisected by thick rope-like lines around his neck and elbows and God only knew elsewhere. His eyes were milky white, but Freya had no doubt he could see out of them. The way his eyes fixed on their group was too focused for him not to see them.

He smiled, the expression grotesquely wide and reveal sharp, pointed teeth that were blackened and stained, before reaching out towards Freya: “Not exactly the way I wanted to tell you.”

Freya didn’t need to ask what he was talking about. She could recognise all of the details instantly.

_Spencer was the Jangly Man._

One of the other girls in the group screamed, and it took Freya a few seconds to work out why - because Spencer had moved, only it had been way too fast for her to see him do it.

The girl who had screamed dropped to the ground - she fell down onto her front, but Freya could see her eyes, staring blankly up at the ceiling from where Spencer had broken her neck…broken it so violently that her head was twisted one-hundred and eighty degrees so she was looking over her own back.

Adrenaline took over, and the group scattered.

Everyone ran for the exits - the unlocked doors and empty window frames, but Spencer was too fast. It took him no time at all to pick them all off one by one, with the shouts and screams of his victims piercing through the sound of Freya’s heart pounding in her ears, until she realised that they had stopped…and she was the only one left to scream. The thought made her look over her shoulder, sure she would see Spencer waiting to snap her neck, only to see nothing but an empty house.

She turned to climb out the window in front of her - and came face to face with Spencer’s chest.

Freya clenched her eyes shut as two icy hands came up her cheeks, shuddering as she felt Spencer lean in close enough for his breath - _so cold, too cold to be alive_ \- to skate over her skin.

“I did say this wasn’t the best weekend to meet your parents.” he muttered, his voice so deep and distorted it was barely recognizable, even though his mouth was right next to her ear: “Still, I suppose I was going to end up here anyway.”

Freya waited for the hands on her face to move, for him to break her neck like he had everyone else’s…but when his hand moved, it was only to tilt her face to the side, the move scarily gentle compared to what she knew he could do. What he was _about_ to do.

But then all he did was softly kiss her on the cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, babe.”

And then he was gone.


End file.
